Review: ‘The Upside of Anger’

Bypass the Joan Allen-Mike Binder admiration society on "The Upside of Anger" commentary and head straight for the disc's warm yet frank making-of featurette. Binder says he wrote the script, about an angry woman who turns to drink after her husband disappears, with his "Contender" co-star in mind, but the studios didn't want her, so his producers lined up independent financing, and managed to lure Kevin Costner as the gone-to-seed jock despite limited coin.

Bypass the Joan Allen-Mike Binder admiration society on “The Upside of Anger” commentary and head straight for the disc’s warm yet frank making-of featurette. Binder says he wrote the script, about an angry woman who turns to drink after her husband disappears, with his “Contender” co-star in mind, but the studios didn’t want her, so his producers lined up independent financing, and managed to lure Kevin Costner as the gone-to-seed jock despite limited coin.

Former standup Binder, best known for HBO’s “Mind of the Married Man,” says the pic stemmed from a desire to move beyond projects that “dealt with misplaced lust.” He drew on his parent’s divorce and set the pic in the same Detroit suburb he and brother Jack, an “Upside” producer, grew up in. That also hit close to home for New Line honcho Bob Shaye, who hails from the same neighborhood and picked up the pic. The disc also contains highly expendable deleted scenes.